Coordination and Search for New Solutio...

Boundary systems, setting constraints for managerial decision-makers, incorporate a tension between granting flexibility to decisionmakers for finding new options as well as aligning managerial choices with respect to overall objectives. This study employs a computational approach to examine configurations of search strategy and coordination mechanisms in boundary systems for their effects on organizational performance. The results suggest that the complexity of the organizational decision-problem subtly shapes the effectiveness of the configurations – suggesting to employ search strategies providing flexibility to managerial decision-makers when complexity is low and to emphasize tight coordination and exploitative or ambidextrous strategies for higher levels of complexity.